Broadband communications networks, such as those operating in accordance with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) signaling standard, may consist of many cells, each of which may support unicast and Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) bearers. MBMS bearers provide transport features for broadcast (i.e., sending the same information to all users in a cell) or multicast (i.e., sending the same information to a given set of users in a cell) using a subset of the available radio resources. Multiple cells may be grouped together into one or more Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) regions to provide a transmission mode which synchronizes and simulcasts transmissions in order to multicast or broadcast data as a multi-cell transmission and thereby reach multiple user equipment in multiple cells with a single transmission.
Users on broadband systems may communicate via mobile terminals (also referred to herein as mobile devices or user equipment), for example, laptops, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDA), smart phones, or other similar mobile devices that communicate with one another via wired and/or wireless networks. A mobile device may be subscribed to a push-to-talk service such that the mobile device may be dynamically, semi-permanently, or permanently configured to be a member of or affiliated with a group (also referred to herein as a talk group), where a single device in the group may transmit information that is substantially simultaneously received by other members of the talk group. For push-to-talk service, uplink bearers are unicast and downlink bearers may be unicast, MBMS broadcast or MBMS multicast, or a combination, depending on the network and user equipment capabilities. While push-to-talk service is possible in a unicast-only network, MBMS is considered necessary to provide full mission critical performance and scalability. MBMS bearers for push-to-talk service are semi-permanently established (i.e., the MBMS bearers are established and the number of bearers may be updated periodically). The established MBMS bearers are placed in a resource pool, and shared (trunked) across the various push-to-talk groups as needed. Thereafter, radio resources (i.e., unicast or MBMS bearers) may be assigned dynamically to each push-to-talk group as the group becomes active.
Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus and method for dynamically selecting the most appropriate unicast or MBMS resources for a push-to-talk group.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.